Tami and I had an interesting experience today. Instead of heading home after church for an afternoon nap, we went to the Western Hills Retirement Center and led a church service for about a dozen elderly people. That's right, folks... just the two of us :-) We are part of a group from our church who take turns conducting the service each week. Today was our first time. Tami was in charge of music and I was in charge of giving the message. Before you start feeling too impressed, my "message" was only about 5 minutes long. Tami, of course, was stellar in the music leading duties.
We arrived a few minutes early and greeted the early birds. Slowly the rest of the group rolled in (literally rolled in as most were in wheelchairs). Once everybody was in the cozy little chapel, we introduced ourselves and chatted with the residents for a few minutes. We opened with a prayer and then sang 3 hymns. After the hymns it was time for my message. I spoke about the parable of the sower from Matthew 13. I basically read the scripture and gave a very brief and very basic explanation of the parable. I learned one very important thing today. A preacher I am not. I'm not even very good at pretending to be one. I know my pathetic little message wouldn't win me any awards, but I know it was a blessing to the residents and that's what is important. I told Tami I knew they weren't expecting Billy Graham and surely weren't surprised by my un-Billy Graham-like message. I closed my little talk by telling them they were the lucky recipients of my first ever sermon. I'm not so sure they felt lucky. I think if they could have caught their breath, they may have booed me out of the pulpit (no,just kidding).
All in all things went well and it was a pleasure to bring a little bit of church to some elderly residents of the Western Hills Retirement Center. I'm not sure when our turn comes up again, but I'll be ready with an even better message the next time.
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